Booney wrote:Agreed, keep the two on field operations as is but merge the two off field operations to give both the best possible opportunity to survive.
Marketing and Admin alone could save $100k's per year in saved wages and ultimately the marketing department are governed by the on field performances to some extent. Get the teams winning, I dont care how attractive the game style is ( see St.Kilda 2009 ) although I admit the more attractive Geelong,Adelaide and Bulldogs' ( Central and WB ) style of play would help get bums on seats, winning is the answer, for both teams.
Gets some wins under the belt, sponsors get on board.
Although not in anyway a direct result of the Global Financial Crisis there could not be a worse time to publicly be putting the hand out to the SANFL and trying to find sponsors. The whole business sector is surprised at the relatively low impact the GFC had on Australia and many are tightening their belts in expectation of a tough 2010.
The merger of off field operations would lead to many problems - the least of which is the twinning of the clubs in an administrative sense - if administrations are twinned why not medical and football department staff? this would also save money?
Focus needs to be on separate clubs for it to be effective - eg queries regarding memberships for port magpies need to focus on the magpies - merged departments naturally look at pushing the products of the merged entities ie the magpies and power - thus enabling the magpies to take advantage of the leverage that afl provides. What's then to stop Norwood approaching Adelaide to take over their administrative roles in order to save money?
Business executives need to focus on their own product - could a ceo of the power effectively push the magpie brand? do recruiting staff count as administrative if they''re unpaid - and sure as eggs, any sort of linkage between the two would provide impetus for a merger between all aspects of the club using the logic of why have just one part of the clubs merged - wouldn't it make more sense to have them all merged?
Yes, business may be bad for the Magpies but isn't as much about business decisions that went wrong rather than any fundamental problem with the club? Don't the Magpies still have membership that sits comfortably around the middle of the sanfl? Aren't their crowds reasonable? If its a problem stemming from the entry conditions such as the assumption of Alberton and its clubrooms by the Power perhaps the sanfl could loan money to the magpies with agreeance of the other clubs) to acquire an ongoing revenue stream - or perhaps the magpies can tough it out much like sturt, norwood and north had to before righting their revenue streams?
Either way, merging the power and port magpies only makes sense if the other clubs then allow power's reserves to be the magpies which then means that adelaide should be offered the same facility. This then breeds a whole host of other problems.
